But I Can See You
by crashmypartyhard
Summary: Jack meets Winter. But, as seasons change, he keeps seeing her. But she's different. Her personality is different, and so is her hair, and so is her outfit. She's Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter. But he's not supposed to see her. All the Guardians know she's there, but none have ever seen her. She's Mother Nature. And it's his job to give friendship to someone as lonely as he was
1. Prologue

She acts like Winter but walks like Fall.

That's what I think of this girl. She stands beside my pond, which isn't frozen over yet. It usually is by now, but winter's come late. Her gait as she stepped up to the pond was light but kind of rushed, and made me think of how people walk in Fall. But her appearance says "Winter".

Her bare feet curl. She's been standing there for a moment after walking up to it. I've never seen her before, and she looks about my age. At least, what my age was before.

I hear the wind, and then she reaches a foot out over the surface of the pond. Her long, long hair moves as she steps.

And underneath her foot turns to ice.

I'm surprised.

Very surprised.

She takes another step. Her feet line up next to each other. She's standing on ice. Ice _she_ made. Then she raises her arms and jumps high into the air, with the help of some wind, and lands on the other side of the pond. She turns around, ice-blue eyes glinting, and from her back she pulls a stick, a lot like mine, and uses the small handle, fit to her thin and slender hand, to touch the middle of the pond with its end. Ice slowly spreads from it, covering the whole pond. She then stands, putting her staff back in its place on her back.

She seems satisfied, but not wholly. She looks up at the sky, covered in a thin layer of clouds. The sun is dim. She brings her attention to her hands, bringing them together and then pulling them apart. And what forms in it is some snow, floating wildly but controlled. It becomes larger and she looks up at the clouds again, smiling to herself. When the snow in between her hands becomes suitable she lowers it down to the ground, where snow appears and spreads out, thinning until it can't reach out anymore.

She brings her hands together and then brings them wide again, a larger amount of snow forming in between. It drifts from her hands into the open air, and she brings her staff from her back again. She swings it through the snow, and her staff acts like a magnet to it, the staff seemingly absorbing the flakes.

Then she runs. She touches the ground with that staff and it spreads over the ground like a virus. She ricochets off the trees and flies across the pond.

In the blink of an eye, it seems, she's finished. The pond is complete. Just as she takes a step into the direction of the town, I land behind her.

"Who are you?"


	2. Meeting Winter

She acts like Winter but walks like Fall.

That's what I think of this girl. She stands beside my pond, which isn't frozen over yet. It usually is by now, but winter's come late. Her gait as she stepped up to the pond was light but kind of rushed, and made me think of how people walk in Fall. But her appearance says "Winter".

Her bare feet curl. She's been standing there for a moment after walking up to it. I've never seen her before, and she looks about what my age was. I hear the wind, and then she reaches a foot out over the surface of the pond. Her long, long hair moves as she steps.

And underneath her foot turns to ice. I'm surprised. Very surprised. She takes another step. Her feet line up next to each other. She's standing on ice. Ice _she_ made. Then she raises her arms and jumps high into the air, with the help of some wind, and lands on the other side of the pond. She turns around, ice-blue eyes glinting, and from her back she pulls a stick, a lot like mine, though much more gnarled and older looking. There is a small almost handle-like twist, looking almost like it fits to her thin and slender hand, to touch the surface of the pond with its end. Ice slowly spreads from it, covering the whole pond. She then stands, putting her staff back in its place on her back.

She seems satisfied, but not wholly. She looks up at the sky, covered in a thin layer of clouds. The sun is dim. She brings her attention to her hands, bringing them together and then pulling them apart. And what forms in it is some snow, floating wildly but controlled. It becomes larger and she looks up at the clouds again, smiling to herself. When the snow in between her hands becomes suitable she lowers it down to the ground, where snow appears and spreads out, thinning until it can't reach out anymore.

She brings her hands together and then brings them wide again, a larger amount of snow forming in between. It drifts from her hands into the open air, and she brings her staff from her back again. She swings it through the snow, and her staff acts like a magnet to it, the staff seemingly absorbing the flakes.

And then she runs—she touches the ground with that staff and it spreads over the ground like a virus. She ricochets off the trees and flies across the pond. Snow flies along with her, and begins to fall from the sky.

In the blink of an eye, it seems, she's finished. The pond is complete. Just as she takes a step into the direction of the town, I land behind her.

"Who are you?"

She freezes. (Pun not intended.)

She turns around, stepping back to make more space in between me and her. Her eyes show worry and surprise and slight fascination. Maybe she's wondering who I am, too. But if she can do what I just saw her do…

She swallows and straightens her posture before speaking. "Winter. My name is Winter."

I narrow my eyes. Our eyes and hair are the same, but it seems our personalities aren't. But why am I comparing? Why do I think she'd be the same as me? Maybe I take care of the frost in winter. Maybe she's snow. "I've never seen you around before."

"No one's really supposed to see me." Winter replies quickly. There's a pause; it consists of eye contact and opposite postures. "No one actually sees me; they just know I'm there. I do my job; no one has to see me." She swallows, looking me over once again. Her eyes flash with uncertainty.

"I see you." I say. I stand taller, still wary of her.

"No shit, Sherlock." It seems rude, but I think she's just trying to scare me off. Maybe our personalities are the same—in the sarcasm aspect of things. "So...no one can see you? Not even the Guardians?"

Her lips have no expression. "No."

"So if you went up to the North Pole, North wouldn't be able to see you?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.

"Or the Tooth Fairy, or Bunnymund, or Sandman. Even Pitch." Her staff is held behind her back, where her hands are resting. I wonder how she can stand the posture all the time. One side of her hair is tucked behind her ear, the other half falling in her face. Her expression is blank but her eyes reveal it; interested but wary.

"I need to go." She says.

"Wait." I say. She hasn't even moved. She waits patiently. "I'm… _I'm_ a _Guardian_."

"I've heard." She says. "The Moon told me." Of course. The Moon tells everyone everything.

"So how can I see you?"

She takes her hands from behind her back, holding her staff loosely in her hands in front of her. "I don't know."

Then she walks away.


	3. Winter Becomes Spring

I see Winter sparingly. Through the trees, in my peripheral vision when there's an unknown gust of wind. If I couldn't see her, I'd probably brush it off as nothing. Just some kind of gust the wind uses to carry a flurry of snow. But now that I know it's her, I feel kind of bad for not actually going deeper into the cause of those gusts. I wonder how many I've encountered and can't remember because I thought it wasn't important. And I wonder if, just like me, she'd watch me or the other guardians. Maybe she was always there and we didn't notice. And I wonder how alone she feels… How alone she's been feeling.

I have another chance to talk to her when she stays a little longer than usual at my pond. She's stopped at Burgess again…but by this time it's the winter after I've met her.

She's there, and she seems to forgotten for a moment that I can see her, because I stand across the pond for a moment. When she doesn't look up, concentrated deep in her work of making sure she's freezing the ice properly, her pale hands hovering and then touching the ice she's making as it spreads out, slowing the water and then freezing it, I kneel to her level, staying in my place. I stare at her and glance at her work, and when the ice finally reaches my side of the pond, she looks up into my face and then remembers.

"…Hi." This sounds cold and guarded. Her voice seems to echo, but the illusion is interrupted by a gust of wind.

I smirk. "What'd you do, forget I could see you?"

Her mouth doesn't smirk at all, not even hinting it could've. "It's been…a whole year," She begins, standing. "I tend to forget things." She bends down and grabs her staff, gnarled and twisted.

I stand as well, walking on the ice, over the pond, to her. She twirls so she's walking along the edge of the pond, stepping lightly on the ice with her left and the snow with her right, seemingly wanting to get away from me.

I catch up to her with a few faster steps, walking on the ice. I cross my hands behind my back, holding my staff in one hand and my wrist in the other. She's standing a pretty good distance away from me, and when I try and sneak my way closer to her, she does the same in reverse. She's keeping her distance, so I decide to move back the other way.

We walk a few more steps when she looks over at me, crosses her arms, and stops. "Why are you walking with me?"

I stop. I don't really know, but I don't want to say that. "…Why not?" I say instead. I shrug, holding out my arms slightly before letting them fall back to my sides.

She's somewhat stunned. Her pink-purple lips thin, her crossed arms seem to relax, and she looks off at the trees behind me. When she looks back at me, she asks a question. "Have you mentioned me?"

"No." And I really haven't.

She looks hard at me, and starts walking again. "Why not? Do you think they wouldn't believe you?"

I skip back in step with her. "I guess…" I pause, thinning my lips. I smile a little. "You know what, maybe I did."

She nods. "It's good you're telling the truth."

"How do you know I'm not lying?"

Winter kind of smirks, but it disappears as soon as it comes. "I've seen you as a trickster." She continues.

"That's because I am." We both giggle, but hers is gone quickly while mine stays as a smile

Winter leaves a trail of snow in her wake. I leave frost that melds with it, that weaves in and out of it, like a table with decorative lace.

"I need to go." She says, very abruptly.

I look to her; the big John Watson sweater she's wearing with her hair down and skinny pants. Her hands are thin, pale and skinny. Her thin frame makes her shoulders look like a hanger underneath that sweater, and her elfin face and pixie nose hide beneath the frames of her pin-straight hair. Our eyes meet, and her pupils dilate.

"Alright." I say. "I guess I'll…see you around." I hold my staff in one hand.

"Yeah." Her eyes say, "_I'd like that._"

Then she takes a few steps away from me and launches herself into the air, off to Burgess.

* * *

It's getting closer and closer to the next season; it's spring when I recognize the shape flying past me, which makes me whirl and smile, yelling, "Winter!" But when she turns, she's different… She's different, and I don't know why.

Her long, dirty-blonde hair is braided back around her head like a headband, and the rest hangs down, not in pin-straight walls, but instead wavy, laid back locks.

Her lips are a pretty pink, and she purses them. Her green-blue eyes stare into mine when she turns, stopping. "Winter? …I'm Spring." Her eyelashes are more noticeable, and her outfit is now a cardigan over a tank top and floral leggings colored with a spring-inspired palette.

I roll this over in my mind. I'm confused. But I tell myself not to argue, but to just go with it. I pause before I say, "I'm not supposed to see you, am I?"

She tilts her head upward, taking a bit to look me over. "No. You're a Guardian. And even if you _weren't_, you still _shouldn't_."

In her footsteps she brings the grass to life; she steps over to me. "I'm going to ask you a favor, Frost. Can you try not to make it too frosty this spring? The gardeners would love it if they could start their gardens early."

It's a simple request. "Okay."

Her staff, strapped behind her back, looks like the same one as Winter's, which is…strange. No other way to explain it. She doesn't have as nearly as good a posture as Winter. Now it's more laid-back, more relaxed. Not as uptight. Her personality's the same way, though she seems like she's still shy.

"How long have you been able to see me?" She asks.

I narrow my options of her similarity to Winter to some things. Right now I'm going with the "cousin or relations" option. "Now, I guess." I say. "You look a lot like Winter."

"Can she really come close to my level of attractiveness?" she smiles, and it's contagious, so I have to, too.

"I guess so." She laughs. I laugh.

"I doubt you're going to mention this to North or the others, Frost. I mean, they know I'm here. They just can't see me." She crosses her arms and looks down at her feet for a moment, watching as flowers begin to grow from her magical touch.

"You're right."

"And don't ask how you can see me, I don't know." She shrugs and waves a hand. "Maybe it's just that you're special." She says.

She's opening up a lot faster than I got with Winter on the first day I met her. It's surprising, but fitting.

"It might be rainier this time around." She says to me. "The plants and grass need all that energy, you know."

I nod. "I'll try and keep my mischief at bay." I smirk. "_Try."_

"I'll be watching, Frost. Don't think I won't." She smiles, amused.

She turns, walking without saying, and I go to walk with her. And wherever she steps, I casually and sneakily reach my staff out and touch the plants. They curl under my frost touch. Spring turns and narrows her eyes at me as a kind of warning.

I start to get under her skin when I start frosting the trees she's touched. She takes a long glare at me this time, then turning and ignoring me, bringing out her staff, too.

The next time I go to frost something is when she blocks my staff with hers. Our eyes meet, and then the game is on.

I advance at her after taking a step back, and she dodges, grabbing my staff with her hand. My frost makes her hand stick, and I smirk, thinking I caught her, but then she starts pulling. I hold on to my staff, but then she reverses her move and jabs me in the chest, which makes me stumble back. She takes that to her advantage, pulling it from my grasp and flinging it when the frost melts. When I regain balance, I use the wind to somersault over her and when landing, grab my staff, turning and blocking just in time, our staffs knocking together. We stare into each other's eyes, mischief burning brighter. I'm the one leaned back, so I push with all my might, making her lose her balance. But then she catches herself and rolls, standing back up with hooked end pointed at me.

I sigh deeply, looking her over and slowly advancing towards her. She gets into an athletic crouch, and we circle around in an imaginary rink, eyes locked, until she's the one to advance. She jumps up, flying over me, into a tree. Now it's her turn to feel smug, as she weaves herself through the trees, in the direction of Burgess. I jump up and dash through the trees, weaving through the branches like a vine, catching up to her until we're neck-and-neck. One glance at me and she speeds up to a pace I've never tried to reach lately, but I ignore my rusty skills and fling myself in her direction.

Spring is hopping from building to building once I get closer to her. Her eyes reflect the fierceness I'm showing, and when we meet up on a flat roof, it's time to jump back into close combat.

She doesn't come any closer than she is, seemingly waiting for me to approach her. My blue eyes flash. I hop up into the air, catching her slightly off-guard. She looks up at me, right into the sun, which makes her squint, and she doesn't see me when I'm right behind her, catching her leg with the hook of my staff and causing her to tumble down, face-first, to the floor of the roof.

When she whirls onto her back, I'm there, catching her staff with my hand and frosting it. She's weaker than me, but then she prevails, and the power of her staff does..something unexpected to my hand. It gets a rosy color and for a moment, I can feel the pulse of my heartbeat. Then I pull away because it's too much to bear, and then she goes in for the kill. She jumps up and pushes me back with her staff held horizontally, and we both tumble over the edge of the roof.

When we land, we both lay there for a moment.

Then we're laughing at the same time. It's a good moment, but my mind flashes back to how she made me living again. She made me live, but only for a second.

When she stands, she holds out her hand to me to lift me up. I take it and when I'm standing, I smile at her.

"Good game." She says.

"Yeah. I guess it was."

"Don't frost me, Frost." She smirks. "And you got me off-schedule, now."

I laugh. "Any time."

Then Spring is off to another place, and I'm left in Burgess.


	4. Summer Has Joined The Party

After meeting Spring and having that duel with her, for a while I can't stop thinking about how she brought me back to life. For that second, my heart was actually beating. And now that it's so fresh in my mind, I have to wonder if I could ever ask her to do that for me again. It felt good to be alive, to feel blood rush through my veins, frozen by death and kept that way by immortality, by my rebirth. But it scares me, too, the power she has over life.

After a few days, when she comes back, I find myself wanting to ask her—wanting to know. There's something inside me that wants to know more about how she works, how she can possibly make me live again. How she can't revel in the feeling herself, or if she can, how it is to be alive.

I'm stuck studying her for an amount of time as I hold my staff loosely in my right hand, sitting at my pond underneath a tree that's growing back its leaves. She doesn't seem to notice me—she's too absorbed in her work. I look for signs of life, things like color in her cheeks. She's a little pale for spring, but maybe that's just me.

When she notices me, she walks over and smiles at me. "Frost." She says, clasping her hands behind her back; she smiles and looks at me with half-lidded eyes, looking happy and content.

"Spring." I stand, using my staff as a way to heave myself up. We lock eyes. "Do you even _have_ a last name?"

She bites the inside of her cheek, thinking. "Don't think so."

I laugh. "Well, then, my name's Jack if you didn't know."

"Of course I knew. Why, do you want me to call you Jack? Does it bother you?"

I frost a dandelion with a flick of my staff. "Maybe."

"If you do, you need to quit frosting things."

I laugh, throwing my arms out. "I'm Jack _Frost_, not Jack _Not_ Frost!"

She sighs, mumbling, "You have a point…"

I elbow her slightly as I pass her. "Of course I do. Otherwise why would I be here?"

She quickly elbows me back, turning and walking with me again. "Well I totally beat your ass last time."

I give her a quick glare.

I can feel her smiling wider, taunting, "You know I did."

I twirl to face her. I study her. Her smile falters. "What?"

"You touched my hand. And…" I lose my cool and sigh, looking away and then I flit back up to her eyes before she can intervene. "You brought me back to life."

She makes a face that says "_duh_". "I know I did." She holds her hands out, shrugging slightly.

It's my turn to make a face. One of question, though. "But..why?"

She tries to find an answer, but I suddenly continue.

"But I'm only going to want it more. I'm going to want to be human again, can you understand that? You're the one who's actually _alive—"_

"You think I'm alive?"

I look up at her, mouth still slightly open. I close it, bringing my hands back to my sides from their outstretched exaggeration. I swallow. Then I speak after hesitation. "I… Sorry. I just thought…"

"You thought wrong, _Frost._ I want to be alive, too! I only _give_ life! Another person has asked me before, and I tried to make him happy, but I only gave him power, which brought on bad things! Very bad things! And I don't want to do that to a guardian. I don't want them overrun with power that they can't think of what else to do with other than exploit it to the point of their fall!" Her eyes threaten tears. I've never seen her this way, and it scares me. Whenever I've seen her through the trees or fly over my head she seems content and smiling. She seems pure. She's supposed to be pure like snow, like the first snow Winter makes, but now that's thrown out the window and now she's making herself slush with her welling tears and it's scaring me.

"Spring, I—" I don't say any more, but walk up to her, staff left set in the grass, and lightly try to grip her shoulders.

I feel that jolt of life and she rips away, tears finally spilling. "No, I'm not going to let you do this. I'm just not, I'm just not." She takes seemingly endless steps backwards, and then lifts herself into the air with the help of wind.

She pauses for a split second to utter, "I—I have to go, Jack."

Then she's gone, and I'm left alone.

* * *

When the days get overly hot, I'm usually busy keeping other places filled with frost. But when I'm finally back, I'm checking on Jamie when there's a cheery humming from behind me.

"And I will wait, I will wait for you…" she sings, examining a woman's garden, touching a wilted flower with hands looking as delicate as the flower does. The flower brightens in color, petals uncurling and folding out. When she turns and sees me, it's only a flitting glance, but it gives me time to recognize her elfin face. And then I'm even more confused.

"Um. Hi?"

She doesn't even glance back at me. She must think I'm not talking to her. She must be like Winter and Spring (who is somewhere I cannot discern, and who I'm still worrying about): she shouldn't be seen.

I try again. "Hello?" I walk a step forward and stand to one side of her, trying to see her face. Her hair is different, her steps on the fluffy earth light and cheery, like I think Spring's should be. (Instead, Spring seems to walk like Winter should.) She wears a nice, but very thin, bright yellow long-sleeved shirt with a simple orange skirt. Her hair is braided into two bright ginger ponytails. Her eyes are a deep, ocean blue.

When she locks eyes with me, she then realizes that I'm looking at her. Straight in the eyes. But then she dismisses it for a moment, deciding to go back to her work of looking over the woman's garden, humming again.

This time I use contact. I walk over and lightly grip her shoulder with my hand. She stiffens, then slowly looks up into my face, realizing.

She stands immediately, and I leave my hand on her shoulder. "You—" she pauses in the middle of her sentence, "Can see me?"

"I…can." I say. "Do you…know who I am?"

She claps her hands together, taking a deep breath as if trying to remember, remembers, and then says, "Jack Frost."

I smile. "Yep. You're…?"

"Summer."

I smile a little wider with pride. "That's what I thought."

"What you thought?" she asks. She looks real cheery and happy and peppy, even when asking something with an unknown and possibly suspicious answer.

"I've met Winter and Spring."

"Oh, them? I've never actually seen them, but I'd just _love_ to meet them!" she says, lowering her happiness for a moment.

"They're both nice." I say.

She becomes overly happy this time, hugging me with strength I'd never expect. "You can see me!" she almost squeals into my ear. When she pulls away she holds my shoulders in a vice grip. "You can't even know how long I've waited for someone to see me. And do you know that it kind of annoys me when you frost everything just between spring and summer? It takes a while for me to defrost things, you know. I can't conjure up that much light."

"Well, I'm mischievous." I say, smiling and politely taking a step back to get away from her grip. She realizes and wrings her hands together instead. "You can't really change it. It's my nature." I shrug.

She smiles wide, wringing hands still wringing. "Yeah, sorry, I tend to forget things. Sometimes I even forget what I'm doing; I get to helping all these kids with making their sand castles and helping others tan properly, and others get burnt, and then I forget what I'm really supposed to be doing." She laughs, then stops and flails hands. "Oh! Like right now!" she whirls so she's turned back at the flowers, apologizing and then going over to some dying tomatoes and whispering comfort to them.

I stand there, watching her and tucking my staff underneath my arm, then shoving my hands in my sweatshirt's pocket.

It's interesting, watching her. Her soft words that I can't hear seem to lift the plants' spirits, and a touch with her delicate hands is like someone lifting your chin up when you're looking down, drowning in sadness. Her bright ginger hair is kind of a wavy-curl, a fractal of the tiniest curls I've seen on a person.

When she's distracted by me again, she smiles the widest smile I've seen, eyes bright as the sun.


	5. Summer Has Seen Fear

After meeting Spring and having that duel with her, for a while I can't stop thinking about how she brought me back to life. For that second, my heart was actually beating. And now that it's so fresh in my mind, I have to wonder if I could ever ask her to do that for me again. It felt good to be alive, to feel blood rush through my veins, frozen by death and kept that way by immortality, by my rebirth. But it scares me, too, the power she has over life.

After a few days, when she comes back, I find myself wanting to ask her—wanting to know. There's something inside me that wants to know more about how she works, how she can possibly make me live again. How she can't revel in the feeling herself, or if she can, how it is to be alive.

I'm stuck studying her for an amount of time as I hold my staff loosely in my right hand, sitting at my pond underneath a tree that's growing back its leaves. She doesn't seem to notice me—she's too absorbed in her work. I look for signs of life, things like color in her cheeks. She's a little pale for spring, but maybe that's just me.

When she notices me, she walks over and smiles at me. "Frost." She says, clasping her hands behind her back; she smiles and looks at me with half-lidded eyes, looking happy and content.

"Spring." I stand, using my staff as a way to heave myself up. We lock eyes. "Do you even _have_ a last name?"

She bites the inside of her cheek, thinking. "Don't think so."

I laugh. "Well, then, my name's Jack if you didn't know."

"Of course I knew. Why, do you want me to call you Jack? Does it bother you?"

I frost a dandelion with a flick of my staff. "Maybe."

"If you do, you need to quit frosting things."

I laugh, throwing my arms out. "I'm Jack _Frost_, not Jack _Not_ Frost!"

She sighs, mumbling, "You have a point…"

I elbow her slightly as I pass her. "Of course I do. Otherwise why would I be here?"

She quickly elbows me back, turning and walking with me again. "Well I totally beat your ass last time."

I give her a quick glare.

I can feel her smiling wider, taunting, "You know I did."

I twirl to face her. I study her. Her smile falters. "What?"

"You touched my hand. And…" I lose my cool and sigh, looking away and then I flit back up to her eyes before she can intervene. "You brought me back to life."

She makes a face that says "_duh_". "I know I did." She holds her hands out, shrugging slightly.

It's my turn to make a face. One of question, though. "But..why?"

She tries to find an answer, but I suddenly continue.

"But I'm only going to want it more. I'm going to want to be human again, can you understand that? You're the one who's actually _alive—"_

"You think I'm alive?"

I look up at her, mouth still slightly open. I close it, bringing my hands back to my sides from their outstretched exaggeration. I swallow. Then I speak after hesitation. "I… Sorry. I just thought…"

"You thought wrong, _Frost._ I want to be alive, too! I only _give_ life! Another person has asked me before, and I tried to make him happy, but I only gave him power, which brought on bad things! Very bad things! And I don't want to do that to a guardian. I don't want them overrun with power that they can't think of what else to do with other than exploit it to the point of their fall!" Her eyes threaten tears. I've never seen her this way, and it scares me. Whenever I've seen her through the trees or fly over my head she seems content and smiling. She seems pure. She's supposed to be pure like snow, like the first snow Winter makes, but now that's thrown out the window and now she's making herself slush with her welling tears and it's scaring me.

"Spring, I—" I don't say any more, but walk up to her, staff left set in the grass, and lightly try to grip her shoulders.

I feel that jolt of life and she rips away, tears finally spilling. "No, I'm not going to let you do this. I'm just not, I'm just not." She takes seemingly endless steps backwards, and then lifts herself into the air with the help of wind.

She pauses for a split second to utter, "I—I have to go, Jack."

Then she's gone, and I'm left alone.

* * *

When the days get overly hot, I'm usually busy keeping other places filled with frost. But when I'm finally back, I'm checking on Jamie when there's a cheery humming from behind me.

"And I will wait, I will wait for you…" she sings, examining a woman's garden, touching a wilted flower with hands looking as delicate as the flower does. The flower brightens in color, petals uncurling and folding out. When she turns and sees me, it's only a flitting glance, but it gives me time to recognize her elfin face. And then I'm even more confused.

"Um. Hi?"

She doesn't even glance back at me. She must think I'm not talking to her. She must be like Winter and Spring (who is somewhere I cannot discern, and who I'm still worrying about): she shouldn't be seen.

I try again. "Hello?" I walk a step forward and stand to one side of her, trying to see her face. Her hair is different, her steps on the fluffy earth light and cheery, like I think Spring's should be. (Instead, Spring seems to walk like Winter should.) She wears a nice, but very thin, bright yellow long-sleeved shirt with a simple orange skirt. Her hair is braided into two bright ginger ponytails. Her eyes are a deep, ocean blue.

When she locks eyes with me, she then realizes that I'm looking at her. Straight in the eyes. But then she dismisses it for a moment, deciding to go back to her work of looking over the woman's garden, humming again.

This time I use contact. I walk over and lightly grip her shoulder with my hand. She stiffens, then slowly looks up into my face, realizing.

She stands immediately, and I leave my hand on her shoulder. "You—" she pauses in the middle of her sentence, "Can see me?"

"I…can." I say. "Do you…know who I am?"

She claps her hands together, taking a deep breath as if trying to remember, remembers, and then says, "Jack Frost."

I smile. "Yep. You're…?"

"Summer."

I smile a little wider with pride. "That's what I thought."

"What you thought?" she asks. She looks real cheery and happy and peppy, even when asking something with an unknown and possibly suspicious answer.

"I've met Winter and Spring."

"Oh, them? I've never actually seen them, but I'd just _love_ to meet them!" she says, lowering her happiness for a moment.

"They're both nice." I say.

She becomes overly happy this time, hugging me with strength I'd never expect. "You can see me!" she almost squeals into my ear. When she pulls away she holds my shoulders in a vice grip. "You can't even know how long I've waited for someone to see me. And do you know that it kind of annoys me when you frost everything just between spring and summer? It takes a while for me to defrost things, you know. I can't conjure up that much light."

"Well, I'm mischievous." I say, smiling and politely taking a step back to get away from her grip. She realizes and wrings her hands together instead. "You can't really change it. It's my nature." I shrug.

She smiles wide, wringing hands still wringing. "Yeah, sorry, I tend to forget things. Sometimes I even forget what I'm doing; I get to helping all these kids with making their sand castles and helping others tan properly, and others get burnt, and then I forget what I'm really supposed to be doing." She laughs, then stops and flails hands. "Oh! Like right now!" she whirls so she's turned back at the flowers, apologizing and then going over to some dying tomatoes and whispering comfort to them.

I stand there, watching her and tucking my staff underneath my arm, then shoving my hands in my sweatshirt's pocket.

It's interesting, watching her. Her soft words that I can't hear seem to lift the plants' spirits, and a touch with her delicate hands is like someone lifting your chin up when you're looking down, drowning in sadness. Her bright ginger hair is kind of a wavy-curl, a fractal of the tiniest curls I've seen on a person.

When she's distracted by me again, she smiles the widest smile I've seen, eyes bright as the sun.


	6. Fall Winds

It isn't the day after when I see Fall. In fact, it's almost the middle of November before I find myself seeing someone unfamiliar walking around the forests of Burgess.

Her steps are light but she wears heavy-looking boots and a brown bomber jacket, dark brown hair pulled tightly back in a bun. She glances at me but it's again only a flitting glance with golden-brown eyes. That's when I know. She doesn't think I can see her, so she ignores me.

I step towards her, wondering how she's going to act. She's probably going to have a different personality than all the others, but you can never be too sure.

She walks over to the trees and touches them lightly with her hand, palms lingering on the surface of the bark as she passes them. When her hand loses contact with the tree, a burst of wind shakes the leaves and they begin to fall to the ground. Sometimes she uses the staff she holds in her hands, sometimes switching it between hands or touching the trees with the staff itself, which has the same effect as her hands. She does each tree fast and deftly, running through the trees and touching each tree in her path with her palms and then her fingers and then she stops completely, standing still. The wind slows until it stops. She takes a few steps forwards and then crouches down.

She jumps into the air. She grabs a branch of one of the trees and swings off of it, flying over to another and jumping sideways off of its trunk to another tree. I follow her silently, using the wind to keep myself up to speed and just far enough behind her.

I follow her for a while until she stops in mid-air, spins to face me, and thrusts her hands out, holding her staff, which creates a gust of wind that throws me back and causes me to fall down and—oh God I'm going to faceplant the ground so hard oh God oh jeez—

I stop falling with my nose inches from the ground. My arms are outstretched, totally not ready to catch me when I hit the ground, and my legs are the same. My toes are curled like they're scared.

A sassy voice comes from above me, and I realize that someone is holding onto the back of my hoodie. The collar is starting to get uncomfortably tight against my neck. "Why were you following me?"

"Uh," my initial reply is cut off by the collar that gets increasingly tight against my neck. I wave my arms sporadically and she drops me down on the ground. I catch myself with my arms and turn around on my back, holding myself up, arms back behind me and fingers digging into the slightly damp ground. "I just wanted to know who you were."

"How can you see me?" her staff is suddenly pointed at my face—again, it's so similar to the others'—and she towers over me, face confused and maybe a little…scared.

I try to back up some more but she keeps right up over me. "I—I don't know. I'm sorry for following you like that I just—"

She takes a few steps back. She crosses her arms. "I'm Autumn. Or you can call me Fall."

I swallow. My face shows confusion.

"…Sorry, too. Um, I just got a little paranoid and…" she slouches even more, looking genuinely apologetic. "I know you're Jack Frost and I…I don't know." She shrugs, averting her eyes slightly.

I try to give her a comforting smile. "Naw, it's okay. I was just as surprised as you are."

Autumn looks at me and a flicker of a smile appears on her lips. She quickly walks over and holds out her right hand to me, offering to pull me up. I take her hand firmly and she lifts me up.


End file.
